The Great Backyard Bird Count lands Friday and remains perched until Monday.

Event co-ordinator Kerrie Wilcox, of Bird Studies Canada, said although she didn’t have Northern Ontario participation statistics, “The population is less dense, so the coverage isn’t as good as southern Ontario.”

She is being kind. Participation is certainly a factor of population, but a quick look at the 2012 results tells more. Thunder Bay residents — encompassing surrounding postal codes — submitted 77 lists. Sault Ste Marie was behind at 49. Sudbury, at 15, was beaten by Little Current, with 16, and Bruce Mines had 11. Many Northern communities made no submissions.

The count, done each year in February, provides a snapshot of where resident winter birds are, Wilcox said.

Scientists use the GBBC information, along with observations from other citizen-science projects, such as the Christmas Bird Count, Project FeederWatch and eBird, to get a big picture of what is happening to bird populations.

“The longer the data is collected, the more meaningful they become in helping scientists investigate questions,” Wilcox said.

Officials are often most interested in how weather influences bird populations, the locations of winter finches and other irruptive species that appear in large numbers during some years but not others, how bird diseases, such as West Nile virus, affecting birds in different regions and what kinds of differences in bird diversity are apparent in cities versus suburban, rural and natural areas.

Reports from Tammie Hache, a bird watcher from Maniouwabage, caught the attention of the scientists at Cornell University in New York.

Last year, her backyard bird feeder was chosen for one of the university’s webcams after she entered an online contest.

Just one week ago, the camera was replaced with a high-definition version and includes audio. It can be found on Cornell’s website.

“Over 200 people are watching my backyard right now,” Hache said in a telephone interview. “People sometimes don’t understand it is just as important to tell the scientists where birds are not as where they are. It isn’t just the high number reports they need.”

Hache has her feeders stocked with black oil sunflower seed “for its high nutritional value.

“It is the best seed for boreal forest birds and it is small so the little red polls and finches can break it open,” she said.

She also uses peanut butter suet for woodpeckers and niger seed for the finch.

“It’s my hobby,” Hache said.

“My husband puts up with it.”

On the North Shore, Rita Wing, of Bruce Mines, is ready with a report.